*This blog was written while I was in Argentina and intended to be posted onto our cohort’s blog but this did not occur.

Working various jobs in the United States from a museum, selling ham, and being a tutor, I thought I was prepared for the Argentine workplace. Cultural Vistas equipped us with a packet about professionalism in foreign workplaces and I had previously visited my college’s career center for advice about the workplace and interviews. I passed my Skype interviews with the directors in Argentina and I was excited to meet them! I knew all about dressing professionally ─  I wore dresses and blazers to my museum job every day. I knew about handshakes, making eye contact, sitting up straight, looking attentive, and everything else about meeting new employers. 

Yet, when I entered my workplace in Buenos Aires I looked extremely scared and frightened. Handshakes were traded in for a hug and kiss on the cheek, and pencil skirts were traded for jeans. I’ve never been told “tranqui” so much in my life until that day. The workplace seemed so foreign. People wear jeans and speak expressively and warmly. The office isn’t filled with silence, but rather with robust conversation of anything from work to yesterday’s soccer match. Where I work is a collaborative environment, people are always talking and working together. Every morning when I come to work, I go around to all my coworkers to give them a kiss on the cheek and ask them how they are. (I didn’t do this my first day, but quickly picked up on ─ I didn’t want to be the cold American in the office) This is also done whenever someone leaves or arrives, even if someone is on the phone. At my company Brincar, everyone is so nice and patient with me. I never feel that I am getting on someone’s nerve or that someone is annoyed with me. Compared to the U.S. workplace, it is so much more relaxed and way less rigid and stiff. I feel that in the U.S., people put on this professional front at the workplace, but here I feel like there is not much of a difference between how people act at home versus how people act at work. In addition, people come and go freely. They go out for lunch or buy things such as a computer mouse. No one clocks in or out and lunchtime is not deducted away. Even in such a relaxed workplace, people are still very productive and take their work seriously.    

A few tips for the work place in Buenos Aires:

• Don’t shake hands ─  do their greeting. Even if you’re a guy do it ─ guys here kiss one another on the cheek for the customary greeting. 
• Ask about the dress code: I could have left many pairs of dress pants at home and brought a few more jeans had I known the dress code. In general, it seems more casual. However, this does not mean bring your baggy sweatpants and sweatshirts ─ no one, even outside the workplace, wears these often.  
• Prepare to eat lunch later: My first couple of days I sat at work starving. My stomach was not used to eating at 2:00 pm. Lunch here at my work is usually eaten at 2:00 pm or 2:30 pm. Other fellows ate lunch a little earlier, such as 1:30 pm. But lunch at 11:00 am or 12:00 pm is not the norm here. Before lunch however, people do a lot of snacking. 
• A note on to-go cups: In the U.S., everyone comes in with their Starbucks coffee cup or whatever to go cup people have. But here? I think to-go coffee cup companies do about half their business in the United States. There really aren’t many people here who carry their to-go coffee cups around. At work, people principally drink mate and there’s not really a to-go type of cup for it. Some of my co-workers drink coffee, but from ceramic mugs at the workplace. Plastic, one-time use cups are not that popular. 

This blog was written by my own experiences and is not representative of all work places or other experiences.